


sickeningly sweet like honey

by rheniumvolution



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Applebee's, Both of those are very serious tags, M/M, Spontaneous Road Trips As A Coping Mechanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 08:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10940883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rheniumvolution/pseuds/rheniumvolution
Summary: “Where to?” he asks, buckling his seatbelt.“Do we need a destination?” Andrew asks.Neil thinks about it, but only for a moment. His skin still feels too tight, and his heart is jack-rabbit fast in his throat. It almost makes him smile. “Yes,” he says. “Otherwise we’re just running.”





	sickeningly sweet like honey

He wakes up that morning feeling like he’s crawling out of his skin, and it takes him a moment to remember where he is, who he is. Andrew squints at him over his coffee mug and says, “Still so many issues, rabbit.”

“Drive?” Neil asks.

Andrew doesn’t respond, but less than an hour later, Neil is sitting in the passenger seat, body tilted towards Andrew. They’re heading East, which is new, but the rest of this isn’t. They stop at a gas station an hour away from PSU, and Andrew tops off the tank while Neil goes into the store. He grabs a water for himself, some chips, a chocolate bar for Andrew.

“Where to?” he asks, buckling his seatbelt.

“Do we need a destination?” Andrew asks.

Neil thinks about it, but only for a moment. His skin still feels too tight, and his heart is jack-rabbit fast in his throat. It almost makes him smile.

“Yes,” he says. “Otherwise we’re just running.”

Andrew nods, “Georgetown.” It isn’t a question. Neil exhales. That drive will take them all night. They’ll miss practice tomorrow. Neil can’t bring himself to give a shit, but he does text Dan.

_me and a are gonna be out tomorrow. should be back by sundown._

She replies near instantly, _ok??_

Neil breathes. _yeah, we’ll be ok._

Dan tells him to stay safe, and Neil doesn’t know how to tell her that he is never more safe than in Andrew’s car, with the radio low and meaningless in the background of his own voice, going on about the new freshmen.

He talks and talks until he runs out of things to say that aren’t important, that don’t skirt the edge of too much right now. Andrew is listening to him, he knows, but they aren’t having a conversation. Neil is talking to himself; he just happens to be doing it out loud. The silence feels too tense when he stops, and he forces himself to breathe.

The light is fading now, the sun setting slow and full, and Andrew’s hair is casting shadows over his face. He needs a haircut, but Neil knows better than to say anything. Andrew will come to him when he wants it done. He’s not singing along to the song coming through the speaker, but his fingers are tapping along to the rhythm on the wheel. Neil feels warmth settle inside him, spread into something soft and tangible.

“If you keep looking at me like that, I’ll push you out of this car.”

Neil feels the smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “Promises, promises.” Andrew’s lip twitches, and Neil’s smile grows. He likes this Andrew, who doesn’t bother to hide the warmth lacing his words, because it’s just them. “If you kill me, Kevin will be mad.”

“Are you going to talk about something other than Exy or should I just leave you at the next rest stop?”

“Depends, are you going to respond?”

Andrew glances over at him and stays silent. It works a laugh out of Neil’s chest, something light and genuine.

“Shut up,” says Andrew.

“Yes or no?” says Neil.

Andrew nods, murmurs a yes, and Neil adjusts in his seat, leans forward to tuck a piece of hair behind Andrew’s ear. It’s starting to curl again, and Neil almost wishes Andrew wouldn’t cut it. His fingers linger there, curving around the shell of Andrew’s ear, thumb brushing just under his jaw.

“Abram,” says Andrew, and there’s a different kind of heat in his voice now.

 _Sorry,_ Neil mouths, even though he isn’t.

He pulls back, and Andrew sighs. “We should get food.”

Neil nods. “I could eat.”

They end up at Applebee’s, because it’s the first place that’s still open. The woman who seats them stares at Neil’s face and tries not to be obvious about it. Neil’s shoulders start to tense, but Andrew’s hand lands on the back of his neck.

“He tripped and fell into a vat of frying oil,” says Andrew, and the hostess’ eyes widen as she trips over an apology and leaves.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Neil murmurs. They’re sitting on the same side of the booth, and Andrew’s hand moves from Neil’s neck to his thigh and stays there.

“I hate the way they look at you,” Andrew replies in German. “So I have to do that.”

Neil hides his smile by taking a drink of water. “Careful, Minyard. Someone might think you care.”

The waiter who comes to take their order obviously was warned by the hostess, because he doesn’t even flinch. Still, his eyes linger for a second too long as he takes their orders.

“Oil?” he asks.

Andrew blinks. “Who told you that? He rescued a kitten from a house fire.”

The man frowns.

“The kitten bit him,” Andrew says. “I’ll have a burger.”

Neil definitely smiles this time, unable to get to his water fast enough. It doesn’t matter, because the waiter is gone already, and Andrew’s grip on his thigh has tightened.

“Yes or no?” Neil asks.

“Yes,” Andrew says, and meets Neil halfway for a kiss.

He means it to be quick, a wordless thank you for understanding what Neil needs nearly all of the time. He hopes it carries. Something must, because Andrew kisses him for a good while, slow and unhurried and nearly chaste.

“We’re getting looks from the staff,” Andrew murmurs in German.

Neil smiles. “Oh, definitely.”

Andrew pushes Neil away from him gently, his hand on Neil’s thigh rubs slow circles into the skin there. “Junkie,” he says, and for the first time, Neil isn’t sure if Andrew is talking about Neil or himself.

They talk quietly to each other about nothing in particular. The new freshmen are skittish and hair-trigger, but they show promise, so long as Kevin doesn’t break them. Renee’s birthday is in a few weeks, and Allison is taking them all out for the weekend. Are they staying in Columbia for Winter break or are they going somewhere new?

The food comes and gets eaten and the check gets paid, and the need to go go go don’t look back dissipates slowly until it’s only a memory.

“Georgetown?” Andrew asks.

Neil considers it. “Why not? I’ve got nothing else to do, and I already told Dan.”

Andrew nods.

The rest of the drive lacks the tension the first part had. Neil doesn’t feel like he can’t breathe, like he has to fill the silence with meaningless chatter just so it doesn’t strangle him. Instead, he rests his head against the window, says, “Yes or no?”

At Andrew’s “yes,” Neil pushes socked feet over the console and into his lap.

Andrew raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know if this is illegal, but it certainly doesn’t make driving any easier.”

Neil smiles. “Do you want me to move?”

“Did I say that?” One of Andrew’s hands rubs gently at Neil’s ankle, and Neil sighs happily. The light from the highway bathes them in and out of orange light, like a pulse. He unclenches his jaw. The song on the radio makes the door against his back thrum with its bass.

_We take jokes way too far ‘cause sometimes living’s too hard. We’re like two halves of one heart; we are, we are, we are._

Neil huffs a laugh, and Andrew glances over at him again. “Eyes on the road, Minyard,” he says softly, and Andrew narrows his eyes at him.

In retaliation, Neil starts singing along to the song. It’s his favorite way to annoy Andrew when they’re on drives like this. He spent most of his life on the run: he knows most of the songs they play regularly, and picks up the ones he doesn’t already know with a practiced ease. His serenades make Andrew frown, but his eyes soften every time. Neil likes the look on him.

“All I need is you,” Neil sings, and Andrew runs his thumb sharply down the bottom of Neil’s foot. Neil makes an undignified noise and pulls his foot away, Andrew grabs him by the ankle and pulls his foot back.

Usually Neil swallows laughter down and tucks it away, like his other emotions. It’s not that he doesn’t trust their family, he’s just afraid that moving too fast, being too much around the Foxes will make them realize just how _much_ he can be, will make them realize that he’s not worth the trouble anymore. He has his mother’s laugh, and his father’s temper, and every time either of them rears their head, Neil wonders how long it would take for him to become just like them.

But here, in this space, with Andrew, Neil lets his laughter ring out unhindered. Andrew’s mouth curves just so, pleased at his ability to make Neil’s ribs ache with joy. When he can breathe again, he stares at Andrew openly and without any fear. Here, he isn’t his mother. He isn’t his father. He isn’t any terrible amalgamation of their parts. He’s just Neil, and Andrew is Andrew, and they are with each other.

“And you say I don’t make driving easier,” he says, a little breathless.

Whatever semblance of a smile it was falls from Andrew’s lips. His eyes burn when he looks at Neil. “You don’t make anything easier.” He tilts his head, and Neil doesn’t know what Andrew finds when he looks at him, but he says, “You make everything harder.”

Neil hears it for what it is. An admission. A confession. Andrew makes things harder for him, too. Now, he can’t just pick up and run. He can’t just fight his way out of every situation. He has something other than his own survival dictating his every decision. Andrew can’t just cut Neil off like he can most other people. There’s something here worth sheltering, worth trying. There’s something worth staying for.

“Yeah,” Neil says. “I know.”

“Get out of my car,” Andrew says. “We’re here.”

The water is a quiet rush, and they sit on the hood of the car because Neil still can’t make himself calm when he’s on sand. The hood is warm beneath his hands, and Andrew knows better than to light a cigarette around Neil right now.

But this isn’t California. This is Georgetown. This is Andrew.

“She would have hated you,” he says. His voice is quieter than he wants it to be.

“I would have killed her,” Andrew says simply. “She wouldn’t have had much time to think anything about me, really.”

Neil smiles. “Sometimes I miss her.”

“Don’t,” says Andrew, “be stupid.”

“Yeah,” says Neil, “because your opinion of me is so high as it is.”

“Two hundred and thirteen percent, Josten.”

“We should get married.”

Andrew’s voice is flat, “What.”

Neil shrugs. “You don’t have to say yes.”

“I know that,” Andrew scoffs. “Why do you think I’d want to marry you?”

Neil leans his head back and looks at the stars. They’re dim, chased away by city lights and smog, but they’re brighter than they are on the roof of the Tower. He likes the sky more, now. Appreciates it for existing in a way that he didn’t before Evermore.

“Remember last game at Edgar Allen? That fan that stabbed me—“

“Because you’re the only person stupid enough to engage with a drunk and bitter Raven’s fan,” says Andrew blandly, but he’s watching Neil closely. Neil can feel Andrew’s eyes on his neck.

“I didn’t know he was drunk or bitter or a Raven’s fan until I saw the knife,” Neil says easily. They’ve had this argument before. He continues. “It took you two hours to fight your way into my hospital room. If we were married—“

“Yes or no?”

Neil blinks and looks back at Andrew. He isn’t sure how to identify the look in Andrew’s eyes, but it’s warm and dark and limitless. “Yes,” he breathes, and Andrew pulls him into a bruising kiss.

By the time Andrew lets him go, Neil is dazed and out of focus.

“We’ll need a witness,” says Andrew. “If you say Day, I’ll kill you.”

“Not Kevin,” says Neil, then, “What do we need a witness for?”

Andrew growls, and tugs Neil into another kiss. After a moment, Neil pulls away. “You’re saying—“

“I’m saying yes. Now shut the fuck up, there’s still time for me to change my mind.”

Neil’s heart thumps erratically against his chest, too big for the space he’s contained it too. The feeling pours into his limbs, into every atom, until his entire being is a constant rhythm of _Andrew, Andrew, Andrew._

“Andrew—“ he says.

Andrew looks at him, and they stay that way for a moment, looking at each other. Neil wants forever like this, and if he plays his cards right, he might just get it.

“Renee?”

There’s a moment where Andrew considers it. “No,” he says, “nobody on the team.”

Neil blinks. They really don’t know that many people. He takes in and immediately dismisses the thought of Roland. Then it hits him, what Andrew is asking. He smiles, a little bit. “Bee?”

Andrew nods, and Neil can live with that. He does like Bee, despite how it must look to her. He likes what she is for Andrew. He doesn’t actually care who sees this, as long as he is allowed to have it.

“Rings or no rings?” he asks. “It’s okay if you don’t want them.” It really is okay. Part of Neil wants them, wants the solid tangible proof of this thing Andrew is giving him, but the other part still can’t believe Andrew is even entertaining this stupid idea, and Neil will take whatever he can get.

Andrew runs his hand down Neil’s arm, tangles their fingers together and stares at them. “If I give you a ring, are you going to cry about it like you did the keys?”

Neil squints at him. “I didn’t cry about the keys.”

It makes Andrew’s mouth twitch, and he leans in to kiss Neil once, twice, again and again until Neil’s mouth is buzzing with it. “We can get rings,” he says, “but I get to pick them.”

“Yes,” Neil says against Andrew’s mouth, “yes, okay.”

Andrew pulls away and hops off the car. Neil feels cold with the loss of him. “I have to call Bee. Are you ready to go home?”

The word bounces around Neil’s head a few times. _Home, Andrew, rings, keys, home._ There are always going to be days where running seems like the best option, but it will never be true anymore. And even when it feels like it, he’s always going to have somewhere, someone, to come home to. _Home, home, home._

“Yeah,” says Neil. “I’m ready.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments/questions/concerns? message me @liminalwitch
> 
> the title and song mentioned are both for him. by troye sivan! i don't own it and i don't claim to. don't sue me, i'm a college student.
> 
> enjoy!


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